Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,75
a handful of times during my high school career, and mostly she asked me questions about where I wanted to be and what I saw myself doing in ten years. Hilarious. Sometimes I could tell her exactly where I’d be in ten years, but it always depended on the day. She was wary of me because once, on a particularly bad day, I made a really stupid slip in my foul mood and told her I saw myself dead. It was the truth; that was when I ended up in Vegas, married to a stripper and dealing drugs to make ends meet. But the obvious inference was that I was contemplating suicide. Mrs. Gross called in Nan and set up an appointment with a psychiatrist for me and I had to spend the next three months trying to convince them that no, whoops, I misspoke, I’m actually just fine. So for the past couple of times I’d told her I wanted to be a dentist. It’s something I have no interest in doing, but it keeps her from calling the men with strait-jackets.
Anyway, even though it was weird to be summoned, I knew why she did it. She wanted to ask me why I hadn’t used the “wealth of helpful free services” the school provided to put together my college applications. Truth was, applying to college was the furthest thing from my mind. But I guess an aspiring dentist like myself should have been knee-deep in applications by now. I just smiled when she said, “I’d be happy to look over your application materials.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Her face turned troubled and by then the You Wills had traveled far enough into the future to allow me to see it. And then I suddenly realized something.
I was a sucker.
She hadn’t called me in here at all to talk college.
She wanted to … oh, hell.
“No. I’m fine,” I said quickly, then cleared my throat when I realized she hadn’t asked the question yet. “I mean, I have to go to class.”
“I found out that you tried out for cross-country,” she said brightly. “That’s so wonderful. You have no idea how happy that made me, to see you finally trying to participate. I know I’ve told you time and time again how important extracurriculars are for a well-rounded college app. It upset me to find out that you didn’t make the team, though. As you can imagine.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay. I don’t want to—”
“No, it’s not. You’re a good runner. And so I spoke to Coach Garner about having you try out again.”
I stared at her, feeling the horror slowly cracking through the mask of indifference on my face.
She gave me a look that reeked of sympathy. “Nick, we heard about what happened before tryouts. That unfortunate incident. Of course that would affect your performance.”
I wanted to clap my hands over my ears. I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my face. “It didn’t affect me. I was fine. And I lost, fair and square.”
She shook her head as if to say, “Silly you.” As if I should jump at the chance to receive her charity.
“Look, I am not trying out again,” I said, wooden.
She smiled at me. “Now, Nick—”
“No, listen,” I seethed.
I hadn’t meant it to come out as a seethe, but I guess it did because I saw little droplets of spit shooting out of my mouth. She leaned back in her chair, surprised and probably a little grossed out. Guess kids didn’t cut her off very often, because her eyes narrowed.
“I mean, thank you,” I managed, backpedaling. “But no thank you. I mean it.”
She just stared at me for what felt like a year.
“Am I done here?” I asked, motioning toward the door. As if I couldn’t wait to be in physics. She waved me on and I escaped into the hallway, closing the door with such force that the frosted glass panel clattered in its frame.
Gritting my teeth, I stalked down the hallway, completely oblivious to everything else going on around me. Not even seven in the morning, and I was already in a crappy mood. I was sure physics, my worst subject, wasn’t going to help anything. I checked my schedule. Room 231.
I wish I had kept my head down as I found my way to the math wing. I wish I had been so well versed in the layout of the school that I didn’t have to look up to see the room numbers. As